


Golden Eyes

by lulumonnie



Series: AUs to Blame on the Crimily [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Rated T for bad dad jokes, Rated T for swearing, References to Shakespeare, Retail!Zuko, because why the fuck not., ikea au, listen if you read one of my fics you're singing up for bad dad jokes, switching POVs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25791682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lulumonnie/pseuds/lulumonnie
Summary: Sokka climbs into an IKEA cupboard and gets stuck, Zuko is the disgruntled employee who gets him out.
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: AUs to Blame on the Crimily [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1837054
Comments: 13
Kudos: 152
Collections: Koi’s atla fic recs





	Golden Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on [this](https://flameyohotdamn.tumblr.com/post/624656449202733056) post. Thank you so much to Sonny (@snowandfire) for betaing!! Love youu

SOKKA

If Sokka would ever have to write a movie based on his life, he now had an absolutely perfect place to start. He could imagine it all perfectly in his head. There would be some upbeat Taylor Swift song playing in the background (he did have some standards) and the camera would zoom in on a very fancy dark blue cupboard, swooping through the wood and focusing on Sokka’s face. There would be a badly edited record scratch and the audience would hear his voice over:

‘Hi. My name is Sokka. And you’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation.’

Alas, he wasn’t in a movie so there was no fun soundtrack to him being stuck in a cupboard in the middle of IKEA. In Sokka’s defence, the dresser was really pretty. If he thought about it, it really was completely Katara and Aang’s fault. They should have known better than to just leave their resident shopaholic alone. He’d have thought that his best friend and sister would know that Sokka tended to get stuck on specific things he found pretty, and that ignoring him obsessing over something would just lead to Sokka getting lost. Katara and Aang probably hadn’t even noticed, they were too focused on finding a nice king-sized bed for their new apartment. Sokka tried to squash the thought that his younger sister was moving in with her boyfriend of four years while he, the older sibling, was painfully single and also currently stuck in a cupboard.

 _At least it isn’t a closet_ , Sokka thought, _I’ve been stuck there long enough_. He mentally high-fived himself for the pun and tried to shuffle around, trying and failing to open the door again.

He hadn’t meant to get stuck in the cupboard. He definitely hadn’t been planning on having to deal with cramped, uncomfortable, wooden confinements on a trip to fucking IKEA. Sokka had just wanted to test out how much actually fit into the cupboard. It was quite large and very pretty and had caught his eye immediately. Katara and Aang, who had dragged him along for shits and giggles apparently, were too preoccupied with each other and had missed Sokka staring at the cupboard for at least five minutes. He’d opened it and waited until no other customers were in sight and then quickly slipped in, closing the door behind him and cackling. His cackles had faded pretty quickly when he realised the door was indeed now completely and utterly closed and no amount of pushing would open it.

Sokka cursed under his breath. He was sure that if he’d just make enough noise, someone would come and help him out but the thought of a stranger finding him in this particular predicament made him cringe with awkwardness.

 _Phones! Thank fuck for the marvel that is today’s technology!_ Sokka thought, quickly taking out his mobile and praying to someone that he still had battery left. His phone turned on, showing his home screen, a picture of Katara, him and their two dads from their family vacation a year ago. He immediately went to text Katara:

_HELP IM STUCK INSIDE A CUPBOARD FREE ME!!_

Suddenly, his gaze glided to the corner of his phone screen and the incessant blaring words _No Service_ made his heart sink.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake’, Sokka grumbled. There really was no way around asking for help. He groaned and closed his eyes. He regretted climbing into the dresser more and more every second. Maybe he should just stay inside the cupboard, think about his place in the universe and wait to surprise some poor unsuspecting person when they opened the doors to the dresser. He could theoretically play it off as some sort of televised prank, but then he realised that there weren’t actually any cameras around.

Sokka groaned again. He had two options:

  1. Make noise and hope that someone would hear him and release him from his self-imposed prison, effectively being confronted with one of the most awkward situations he’d ever been in in his short 22-year-old life.
  2. Stay inside his wooden confinement, completely alone with his thoughts and thinking about his place in the universe until either Aang and Katara alerted the police and the staff or he died of starvation.



Honestly, the second option seemed much more attractive to Sokka in the moment. At least he might be able to retain some of his dignity while starving to death in an IKEA cupboard. Crying for help and having a complete stranger let him out of the cupboard was entirely humiliating.

 _But I’m hungry_ , Sokka thought. _I just got Katara to agree to go for some burgers later, I can’t starve to death just yet_. He thought that this was a convincing argument, so he reluctantly started knocking against the wood, trying to attract attention. He cursed Katara and Aang for being such damn early risers and going to IKEA at 8 in the morning. There really weren’t many people here yet, so the probability of someone overhearing him was quite slim. He knocked against the wood a bit longer. No response. He knocked harder, keeping up a steady rhythm for what felt like half an hour when he finally heard shuffling from outside and the doors of the cupboard were yanked open and Sokka tumbled onto the ground clumsily.

Sokka groaned lowly and looked up to see who his saviour was, and suddenly all thought of an awkward situation were out of his head, because the person who’d opened the door was _breath-taking_ . He was first met with golden eyes (did people _have_ golden eyes? How was that possible?) that reminded him of molten gold. The eyes were behind thin golden rimmed glasses on a beautifully arched nose. The boy in front of him looked about his age and he had unruly, long black hair that hung into his face and past his chin. His lips were soft and red and Sokka had the inexplicable urge to lean up and kiss him. He was sure the boy would look beautiful smiling, but right now he was frowning, his one eyebrow raised. Sokka had been so preoccupied with how pretty his eyes were that he’d completely missed the large scar that covered one side of his face. He winced as he realised that his staring was probably extremely rude. But he couldn’t help himself. He’d been stuck inside a dresser, believing that he’d starve to death and now he was confronted with a gorgeous, albeit frowning man.

 _I am but a simple bisexual worm_ , Sokka thought. _No-one can expect me not to stare at pretty people_.

ZUKO

Zuko was having a supremely awful day. That in itself wasn’t really a new thing, but it was quite unusual that so much went wrong when it was barely nine in the morning. He’d managed to spill tea on his favourite shirt while getting ready, then the goddamn underground that was supposed to bring him to work just didn’t come and he had to call his best friend Mai who was gracious enough to give him a ride to IKEA. Zuko cringed at the amount of baked goods he probably owed her now. 

When he finally arrived at work, he’d had to stack boxes and rearrange tables in storage for three hours until his arms hurt and he just wanted to go back home and to bed to preferably sleep until the weekend. Finally, his manager Piandao called him over. 

‘Zuko, Jet just called me from supervision. There’s apparently someone stuck inside a cupboard on the second floor’, Piandao said. 

‘Someone is stuck inside a fucking cupboard?’, Zuko asked, completely flabbergasted. 

‘Don’t ask, Zuko, I don’t know either.’

‘How do you get stuck in a _cupboard_ ’, Zuko said, staring at Piandao. 

‘I have no idea. Go rescue them, you’ve been moping around here enough’, his manager commented, walking away and effectively ending the conversation. 

Groaning, Zuko made his way outside of storage and towards the section where some idiot _somehow_ managed to get stuck inside a cupboard. _If it were a closet, it would’ve at least been funny_ , he thought. _this is just sad_ . He idly wondered how people even managed to get stuck inside a cupboard in fucking Ikea of all places. _Who just walks around, climbing into random furniture?_

When he finally arrived at the admittedly very pretty cupboard he heard knocking noises from the inside. There weren’t any customers around, it was too early in the day for the bulk of people usually running around the place. Zuko leaned down, rolling his eyes at this particularly weird customer and vowed to give Mai, Ty Lee and his sister a detailed rundown of his most idiotic customer service story later and yanked open the doors of the cupboard. 

His first thoughts were _oh fuck, he’s pretty_. 

Then he realised that pretty really didn’t to the gorgeous man tumbling out of the navy blue cupboard justice. He was one of the most attractive people Zuko had ever seen and he was _lying on the floor_ . Zuko banished the thought that his type in men was pretty questionable if he found it this hard not to stare excessively at someone he’d had to rescue from a cupboard of all things, but then the boy sat up and Zuko tried hard not to catch his breath. The boy had the bluest eyes Zuko had ever seen, his hair was up in a ponytail and he had a goddamn undercut. _He just_ had _to get more attractive, didn’t he_ , Zuko groaned internally. 

Then he realised that Cute Undercut was staring at him and he felt a cold sensation run down his spine and he frowned. _Right. The scar._ For a second Zuko had lived in a blissful world where one half of his face wasn’t marred irrevocably. Cute Undercut was wincing as he got up and cleared his throat. 

‘Uhh. Pretty- I mean thanks. For the cupboard I mean. Which is the pretty thing here. Pretty cupboard’, Cute Undercut said. 

_Well fuck_ , Zuko thought. This boy also had a very nice voice. 

‘You’re welcome. At least it wasn’t a close- I mean how did you even get in there?’, Zuko asked, mentally chiding himself for slipping up. 

‘You’re right I’ve been stuck in the closet too long. I don’t intend to go back there’, Cute Undercut With The Pretty Voice said. ‘I just wanted to test out whether I would fit.’

‘Is that a concern you usually have with cupboards?’, Zuko asked, his heart soaring at Cute Undercut With The Pretty Voice’s comment. 

‘Not really? It was large and pretty, I just had to test it out. You know, for science’, Cute Undercut said. 

‘Science. Right’, Zuko said, completely at loss. Cute Undercut was standing in front of him and Zuko realised with a small jump of his heart that he was a few inches taller than Zuko. _He’d be able reach the top shelf in my kitchen_ , the traitorous part of his mind supplied. _Shut up,_ Zuko thought. 

‘Science. Very important experiment’, Cute Undercut said. ‘I also tested how long it would take until someone would find me.’

‘Oh really? How long did it take, then?’, Zuko asked, raising his one eyebrow. 

SOKKA 

Sokka was lying through his teeth. 

‘Oh it took three and a quarter Hamlet soliloquies’, he said, hoping to impress the pretty boy with the molten gold eyes. _How the fuck does he even have golden eyes?_

‘Wait which ones? Did you really sit in there saying _To be or not to be_ over and over again?’, Golden Eyes said, his eyebrow raised. 

‘Well, being stuck in a life or death situation will do that to a man’, Sokka answered, grinning. ‘To Billy or not to Billy, that is the question.’

Golden Eyes stared at Sokka, and for a good five seconds Sokka thought that he’d completely misjudged the situation and Golden Eyes would ban him from IKEA indefinitely. Then Golden Eyes started to laugh and Sokka’s heart took a brief vacation to yell into the void, because his laugh was so. Cute. 

‘Do you usually go around quoting Shakespeare’s most overhyped play to poor retail workers?’, Golden Eyes asked, a small smile playing over his lips. Sokka wanted to kiss him. 

‘What can I say, I have an important task’, Sokka answered. ‘Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.’

‘Oh, quoting Twelfth Night, I’m impressed’, Golden Eyes said, full on smirking now. 

‘I know more than just Shakespeare light’, Sokka answered, awkwardly straightening out his ponytail and grinning at Golden Eyes. 

‘That’s good. Too many people don’t have the _will_ to dig deeper and find better plays’, Golden Eyes said and Sokka started wheezing. 

‘The _will_. Oh my god, that’s genius’, Sokka giggled and Golden Eyes grinned wider. ‘I can’t believe I had to get stuck in a cupboard to get some good jokes around here. At least it isn’t summer, otherwise this would have been a pretty muggy situation.’

Golden Eyes grimaced and let out a small giggle that made Sokka’s heart melt a little more. It really wasn’t fair that this guy was just _so pretty_. 

‘I didn’t expect the dumbass who got stuck in the cupboard to be a Shakespeare lover’, Golden Eyes said. 

‘I didn’t expect my saviour to be one either. I mean saviour- you saved me- yeah. Right. Thank you. For that’, Sokka answered, mumbling a bit. 

‘You’re welcome. It was quite the change up to my usual work day’, Golden Eyes said. 

‘I mean, I’m always down to nerd out over some theatre’, he answered. ‘What’s your favourite play?’

ZUKO

Zuko was fucked. He was so fucked. It was bad enough that Cute Undercut was so darn cute, but he also happened to be a theatre nerd. Zuko had to stop himself from whooping out loud every time the other boy mentioned one of his favourite plays. 

_Today is the most surreal day I’ve ever had_ , Zuko thought. Here he was, talking about Shakespeare with a gorgeous boy that he’d saved from being stuck inside an IKEA cupboard. He could feel an imaginary Mai giving him a lopsided smirk and a thumbs up as he stumbled his way through the conversation. 

‘I can’t believe everyone thinks Romeo and Juliet is the most romantic shit’, Cute Undercut was saying, now leaning back on his wooden ex-prison. 

‘Romeo and Juliet was a lesson in miscommunication’, Zuko answered, gesticulating with his hands. Cute Undercut smiled at him, a strange glint in his blue eyes. He opened his mouth to answer when suddenly someone yelled something. He winced at the loudness and promptly whipped his head towards the source of the sound on his left.

‘SOKKA! Where the hell have you been??’, a girl around Zuko’s age, walking towards them was yelling. She looked very similar to Cute Undercut, had the same hair and eye colour and the same soft, tan skin. Following her was a boy her age with a bald head covered in a blue arrow tattoo.

‘Oh hi Katara’, Cute Undercut- no, Sokka said. Sokka. _Sokka_ . That was a pretty name. _Anything Sokka-related is pretty_ , Zuko mused. 

‘Hi Katara. Is that all you have to say?’, the girl said as she and the bald boy following her arrived next to Sokka and Zuko. 

‘I mean, I remember my sister’s name, what else am I supposed to call you?’

‘You’re impossible. We’ve been looking for you for like an hour!’, Katara said. 

_An hour? Has it been that long already_ , Zuko thought. 

‘I’m sorry, I got carried away talking to Golden- I mean talking to- wait, I never asked your name’, Sokka said, turning towards Zuko. Zuko’s heart raced. What had Sokka wanted to say? Golden? 

‘Uhh, Zuko. I’m Zuko’, he croaked, staring at Sokka. 

‘Zuko’, Sokka whispered. Zuko nearly gasped at how good his name sounded in Sokka’s voice. He wanted to hear it more. 

Zuko opened his mouth to say more again when his phone rang. He cursed internally and pulled it out of his pocket, grimacing at the name on the screen. 

‘Jet, what do you want?’

‘You’ve wasted like an hour with the person stuck in the cupboard. Piandao needs you so get your ass back to storage’, the voice of Jet, his coworker, filled his ear. 

‘Ah fuck, alright, I’ll be right there’, Zuko said, his heart sinking. 

‘Toodeloo, Sparky’, Jet said and hung up. Zuko looked back at Sokka dejectedly. 

‘I- I have to go. Work’, Zuko mumbled. 

‘Oh. Right’, Sokka answered. His face fell from the smile and he looked down and Zuko couldn’t see his eyes anymore. ‘I should probably head home too. With my sister.’

‘Yeah…’, Zuko mumbled. ‘Well...bye?’

‘Bye’, Sokka whispered. Zuko felt like shit, but he awkwardly shuffled around Katara and the bald kid, throwing Sokka one last glance and walking away slowly. 

Zuko could hear his inner Mai groaning. If she’d been here, she would’ve made him get Sokka’s number. But she wasn’t, and so he didn’t know how to. It wasn’t like he had a good excuse to give Sokka his number, there wasn’t really any pressing concern, it wasn’t as if the other was going to get stuck in a cupboard again, right? 

...right?

Suddenly, unknown courage shot through him and Zuko turned on the spot and walked back towards Sokka, Katara and the bald kid. He got out his notebook and a pencil and started scribbling down his phone number as he caught Sokka’s eye, who was just turning to leave. 

‘Did you forget something?’, Sokka asked, confusion on his face. 

‘Yes. Here. In case you get stuck in another cupboard and need saving’, Zuko said and pressed the note into Sokka’s hand. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!! Please let me know what you thought, I've been working on this idea for a few weeks now, ever since Halie got lost at IKEA and my brain immediatley went ZUKKA AU.  
> Thank you to the crimily for supporting me in my dumbassery and inspiring this fic, I love you dorks.  
> Come talk to me about Atla on tumblr @flameyohotdamn.


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